Paytm gains 5% as RBI asks NPCI to become third-party application provider

The RBI has asked the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to look into the possibility of migrating Paytm Payments Bank customers, using the UPI handle '@paytm', to four-to-five other banks

Shares of One97 Communications (OCL), which provides financial services under the brand 'Paytm', and has a banking arm Paytm Payments Bank, were locked in the 5 per cent upper circuit at Rs 428.10 on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) in Monday's intraday trade after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) asked the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to look into the possibility of migrating Paytm Payments Bank customers, using the UPI handle '@paytm', to four-to-five other banks, in order to prevent any disruptions in the payment ecosystem.

One97 Communications (Paytm) is India's leading digital ecosystem for consumers and merchants. It offers payment services, commerce and cloud services, and financial services (mainly loan distribution) to 333 million consumers and over 20 million merchants.

As the Paytm Payments Bank cannot accept further credits into its customer accounts and wallets after March 15, 2024, certain additional steps have become necessary to ensure seamless digital payments by UPI customers using '@paytm' handle operated by the Paytm Payments Bank, and minimise concentration risk in the UPI system by having multiple payment app providers, the RBI said in a press release. CLICK HERE FOR FULL DETAILS

Till 09:23 AM, a combined 8.32 million equity shares had changed hands and there were pending buy orders for 2.22 million equity shares on the NSE and BSE. By comparison, the Nifty 50 was down 0.14 per cent at 22,181. With today's gain, the stock price of Paytm has bounced back 35 per cent from its record low of Rs 318.05 touched on February 16, 2024. It had hit a 52-week high of Rs 998.30 on October 20, 2023.